


let your sorrows rest at sea

by meritmut



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, References to Norse Religion & Lore, general incoherence, inconsistent use of Norse spellings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6981586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Míni eygu sukku í djúpa hav í nátt</p><p>(My eyes sank into the deep sea this night)</p>
            </blockquote>





	let your sorrows rest at sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



> title from 'ankomst' by leaves' eyes; lyric from 'hjarta mítt' by eivør; prompt 'lagertha/siggy, ocean gods'

_They say Óðinn led you to the table by his own hand,_ night moves in over the sea-lake; slow and heavy darkness, thief of daylight, prowling down the hillsides to cover the shore and the slopes and the fires that glint like moons upon the shivering surface of the water, yellow as an old man's teeth, bright and sharp as the gold beads on Rán’s many-layered skirts.

Lagertha marks a solitary figure at the prow of the furthest ship from shore, her mind at wander in the twilight: _they say that he would not share the task of bringing she who saved the sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók to the place of honour, to a seat of greater fame than even your husband_ \- (though, she thinks, they are Ragnarr’s men, and so perhaps they would say that) - _and that you sit there now with fine gold at your throat and your wrists and your fingers, restored to your place as though you’d never left it, as though all that has come and gone since then has been washed away like footprints with the tide;_ Lagertha's mouth softens, not a smile, not quite, she will not smile while this ache rests heavy below her heart - _it is the only place you knew where to live, like a fish; a fish who could not survive outside the sea, you were made for silver and gold and fine things, you were not made to bend._

They do not say, _I think she would sooner have gone to her daughter,_ not where the gods can hear them, but there are some losses that never truly lessen and there are still moments when Lagertha half-imagines she sees - there in the corner of her eye, just beyond the edge of clear sight - a girl-child darting through the sunshine like a minnow in the stream, cornsilk hair spun into a net of light and a smile her mother will not hope to glimpse again before the world's end, and if there are such things as little blasphemies this is one she thinks she understands.

_Floki says that it was white Rán herself that called you to her, that you were chosen, and that she thought you too much like her in the end – sea-bright and shining, cold and proud as jewels and steel, she calls all such things home to her in the end -_

\- a cool wind stirs the boats, the late tide laps blue against the shore but out on the fjord the water is utterly, utterly still: Lagertha lets slip the arm-band (sea-bright and shining, warmed only by its passing closeness to the skin of her palm) from her fingers, and watches it vanish below where the light can find it.

_Keep a place by the fire for me, dear friend._

**Author's Note:**

> uses the norse spelling of ragnar and the anglicised spelling of lagertha: cool


End file.
